The objective of this research is to improve the radiological diagnosis of ischemic heart disease by using new information from regional myocardial contraction analysis. We have evaluated the chief methods of determining the regional myocardial contraction, and we have found one which agrees most often with the radiologist's original diagnosis. Computer programs were written for five techniques and are presently functional. In order to determine which method is the best, the techniques would have to be tested on a much larger clinical population. The foundation has been laid, but the work has to be continued in order to yield statistically meaningful results. These results and computer programs will be made available to smaller hospitals performing assessment of global and regional myocardial contraction. We found that all techniques are at least partly arbitrary. By attaching stainless steel markers to the endocardium of canine hearts, the motion of these markers can be studied readily. We propose to follow the motion of the endocardial points frame-by-frame during contraction and relaxation and to track the paths in RAO, LAO, AP, and lateral cine projections. From the knowledge gained by the motion analysis, a physiologically more correct measurement protocol and method will be developed. It should be superior to other (linear or radial) grids chosen arbitrarily. The results of this proposed new kind of regional myocardial contraction analysis should be more accurate and agree better with other clinical parameters than do the measurements of the older techniques. The third goal is the study of asynchrony (tardokinesis), a largely unexplored phenomenon in which the normal synchronization of myocardial contraction is disturbed. A computer program will be written which recognizes asynchrony using frame-by-frame cine analysis. The abnormality is probably more common than is anticipated, and its correlation with the clinical findings (coronary arteriogram and ECG) is so far unknown.